I do, Baru thought. I want Mother and father Solit to be safe. And I want Ulyu Xe and her companions safe, too. And even Shao Lune, though she looks very excited to watch me die.

“You are bound to Ormsment, now,” Tau murmured. “Isn’t she here because of you? Because of the pain you caused her? She is no less your companion. You are less alone than you once were, Baru, and that is all of everything. Go forward! You will be safe.”

“You want me to kill Ormsment?”

“I want you to trust in trim,” they said, as they smiled up at her. “No one will die here unless it is deserved. Ormsment refused the peaceful way.”

“It’s a duel to the death, Tau!”

“It’s a duel to the end. If you win, killing her is a choice. I told you that I would ask you to face what you could not face, didn’t I? And you swore on your parents that you would not lie to me. Now trim has called that oath back on you and given you a chance to prove you are worthy of your parents. This is a test, Baru! A test of your trim! I tell you that if you go against Ormsment now, and if you have in true faith tried to help your parents and all your companions, if you have honest intentions and good hopes, the bonds you have built will protect you and help you see this through. Face what you have done to her, Baru. Acknowledge she is real. It is the only way.”

But, Baru thought, Tau, I haven’t been honest. I haven’t told you what I’m doing with the little portrait of Iraji. I haven’t told you the Cancrioth are here. So even if you’re right, and this is a test, I will fail, I will invite the most hideous disaster, and you’ll know that Ormsment was right.

You will regret ever knowing me.

She hesitated there with Tau’s lips up at her ear and her right side turned to Ormsment.

And on that right side,

up on the balcony above the garden,

there was Aminata.

Looking down in anguish, as if all she wanted

was to leap down and come to Baru’s aid.

Aminata! It’s me!

And from the corner of her eye Baru saw Scheme-Colonel Masako’s face. She couldn’t name the expression but she recognized it instantly, because she had made it herself so many times. It was the mask of an agent keeping their tenuous calm in the instant before a secret arrangement came to fruition.

On some venal, calculating level Baru must have seen that face and thought, oh, good, the duel will be interrupted, and I’ll be spared.

That was the impulse that made her take the first step into the circle.

*   *   *